I’ve share on this blog that every December/January my wife and I come up with a theme word for the new year. Examples: Breathe, Focus, Thaw, Prosperity, Contentment (we had to double-down on that one and use it a few years in a row before we felt like we were ready to move on…there’s a lot that goes into learning how to be content.)

Our theme for 2019 was Build, and it was interesting to see that, actually, 2019 had a lot of dismantling and deconstruction in it, and not the kinds of Building that we thought the year would bring. I ended up closing down my business, our kids left their school, my wife left her job. Things were ending suddenly and we were all in a flurry of transitions for most of the year.

Our big walnut tree in the backyard had to be cut down, and left the yard and the house feeling naked and bare. The emotional feel of the whole year was a lot like the removal of that eighty-year old tree. What’s left after an entire tree comes down is just a patch of muddy ground and a small mound of mulch, and a lot of open space. There’s nothing that will be able to immediately fill the space the same way as that tree. What was once defined by a large Thing (a tree) now is a place of possibility and opportunity. A building site. A ground zero. Sometimes coming back to square one helps illuminate what really is important (and what’s not), and it’s easier to see what it is you actually want to be building, instead of just throwing nails onto boards because they are already there. What also becomes clear is that however that space is going to be used, whatever the new Thing might be, it’s going to take time–lots of it– to make something as significant and beautiful as the tree that came down.

So, in many ways 2019 was a year of simplification and minimalism. A year of letting go and not knowing what the next right thing was going to be (see what I just did there, Frozen fans?) At times, it felt like a wrecking ball was crashing through the structure of our lives over and over again. But, the dust feels a bit more settled now, and we can see that what remains –our family and our relationships with each other–is really strong, and it’s what really matters. Things feel calmer and more settled now. I’ve been around the sun enough times to know that seasons like this don’t last indefinitely, and so I’m really soaking up and enjoying the peacefulness that permeates our family life these days. Now we get to build what we really want from here.